Wednesday, June 28, 2006

"To read and to travel: that should be for anyone among the finest of vocations."~ Gregorio Brillantes

World Hum - an excellent travel weblog - has finally put up their list of Top 30 Travel Books. Out of Which, I've only read 4, shown in Orange.

No. 1: Arabian Sands by Wilfred ThesigerNo. 2: The Road to Oxiana by Robert ByronNo. 3: The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul TherouxNo. 4: The Soccer War by Ryszard KapuścińskiNo. 5: No Mercy by Redmond O’HanlonNo. 6: North of South by Shiva NaipaulNo. 7: Golden Earth by Norman LewisNo. 8: Video Night in Kathmandu by Pico IyerNo. 9: The Innocents Abroad by Mark TwainNo. 10: In A Sunburned Country by Bill BrysonNo. 11: The Snow Leopard by Peter MatthiessenNo. 12: The Songlines by Bruce ChatwinNo. 13: Travels with Charley by John SteinbeckNo. 14: Riding to the Tigris by Freya StarkNo. 15: Europe, Europe by Hans Magnus EnzensbergerNo. 16: City of Djinns by William DalrympleNo. 17: A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric NewbyNo. 18: All the Wrong Places by James FentonNo. 19: Hunting Mister Heartbreak by Jonathan RabanNo. 20: River Town by Peter HesslerNo. 21: Road Fever by Tim CahillNo. 22: When the Going was Good by Evelyn WaughNo. 23: Behind the Wall by Colin ThubronNo. 24: Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere by Jan MorrisNo. 25: A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh FermorNo. 26: Baghdad Without a Map by Tony HorwitzNo. 27: The Size of the World by Jeff GreenwaldNo. 28: Facing the Congo by Jeffrey TaylerNo. 29: Venture to the Interior by Laurens van der PostNo. 30: A Turn in the South by V.S. Naipaul

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

'If I was a dog, I'd be a terrier. I suppose I was brought up in quite a tough culture and used to speaking out. I get angry when people behave stupidly or brutally to each other or to animals or to the planet. It seems to me a debasement of humanity when you can't be bothered to think how your actions will hurt someone else. It drives me mad. You know if there is a fight on the street, I am always in there. I have been knocked about so many times because I can't stand back.'

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Mrs Winterson used to talk about an interfering madam she disliked as a "proper Cleopatra". On further inquiry I discovered she had "a rod up her asp". When I asked what this meant, Mrs Winterson replied: "She won’t let sleeping snakes lie."

I have been thinking about narrative techniques recently. Sarah Waters' Night Watch works powerfully by telling the story backwards. This is not exactly revolutionary and Waters herself admits she was partly inspired by Harold Pinter's Betrayal.

The poignancy of the unravelled lives, and then moving back in time to where it all began. Knowing we are fated to disappointment and loss, yet yearning desperately to love.

As an explanation for this train of thought: I'm currently working on the story that I first began when I was supposed to be working on my thesis. That was more than 6 years ago. Back then I was watching too many Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes. The tormented vampire/Slayer love story flooded my consciousness like a cheesy stew.

The story that first sprouted 6~7 years ago was supposed to be a pastiche of all the vampire stories I've imbibed my entire life. But as my computer crashed on me after graduation, and with my life consumed by an adult working life - the story went into hiatus. I stopped writing. Period.

Two years ago I picked up the thread of that lost tale. My notes and drafts were lost and I had to tell the story from scratch; I was also learning to live some aspects of my life anew.

As I begun to write, I realise another story was pushing itself into the foreground. Many of the original characters were altered, some were abandoned. My vampire pastiche became an existential meditation.

I wanted to begin the story with the broken lives of my heroes. (They are heroes because these characters bear the Promethean burden in the story.) And I wanted to trace everything back to the start of it all, 5 years ago.